Notes and Editorial Reviews

“Wogglings” and “grumble-shouts” abound, songs and shanties rudely collide, the jovial, the dark, the angry, the a cappella, the elaborately adorned; fabulously sophisticated harmonies have a way of sounding homespun, syncopated rhythms hop, skip and jump over the traces, the wind bands serenade and roar, guitars and harmonium and “tuneful percussion” come out to play, the more the merrier, the rowdier. And the whole world dances. Or mourns. The range of colour and expression contained here is bewildering. But that’s Grainger for you. You never quite know whether to laugh or cry, or both. You don’t second guess him, you don’t try to understand him. The genius is in the lunacy. And it goes deep.

The really startling thingRead more about all these settings is the way in which Grainger unlocks the inner life of each text, each melody. He’ll digest it, understand it, respect it, and then in his response – which is nothing if not personal – he’ll elaborate, creating as little or as much subtext as is appropriate. Like Britten, in his folk-song settings, Grainger knew how and when to get out of the way. The plaintive Brigg Fair is no more, no less than the tenor solo and chiefly wordless chorus will allow us – a tune so precious to Grainger that even the harmony is almost an intrusion. Then there is the classic Londonderry Air – no words, just voices – a harmony that is so rich, so expressive, so integrated, that it always shrouds the melody in the imagination.

Then what, you may ask, could be more extraordinary (or unlikely) than the Love verses from “The Song of Solomon” (inquisitive, oddly erotic, a real Old Testament amplitude to harmony and texture – replete with harmonium)? Well, Shallow Brown for a start. Astounding. A sea shanty with the reach of a spiritual, it is set as the sailors will have yelled it, the vocal line stretching and distorting, straining to be heard over furious oceanic tremolandos (the aforementioned “wogglings”) in guitars and strings. An unexpected upturn (a tiny question mark) in the choral refrain at the close is typical of Grainger. He did so like to keep us guessing.

And there is plenty more where that came from. You should know what to expect when Grainger pitches What shall we do with a drunken sailor? into “a room-full of Scotch and Irish fiddlers and pipers and any nationality of English-speaking, shanty singing, deep-sea sailors …”. A “merry Babel”, he called it, and that it is. Quite how anything so intricately woven got to sound so spontaneously inebriated is beyond me. But then Grainger was always able to write down precisely what he heard. And in that he was closer to Charles Ives than any other composer I know. Indeed, the rousing finale, Tribute to Foster (that’s Stephen Foster, of course) is as much a tribute to Ives. Some tribute. Imagine America’s Beautiful dreamer in tandem with the Danbury marching bands all the way to the Camptown Races. Foster’s song, Grainger’s fantasy, and – at one point – Grainger’s words. That’s the amazing middle section, a lullaby-like reverie evoking childhood memories of his mother’s singing. “Tuneful percussion” (that’s the gamelan variety) wafts us into a weird and wonderful dreamscape, the tune now half-remembered in five solo voices while musical glasses and bowed marimbas lend a halo effect. In a riotous knees-up at the climactic refrain “Gwine to sing all night!” (and even before you get to play it, you can hear Grainger piling on the brassy counterpoints), two offstage groups enter the fray in disarray in readiness for a magical ‘dissolve’. Trumpet, clarinets and side-drum rattle off into the distance. The party’s over. Did it ever happen?

No more words. Call me biased – a fully paid-up member of the Grainger appreciation society – but this is a fabulous disc. John Eliot Gardiner may well have inherited some of his joy in this music (though heaven knows, you don’t need to inherit it) from his great-uncle, Balfour Gardiner (one of the ‘Frankfurt Gang’, which included Grainger). He is characteristically hot in his response to its rhythmic zest so too his wonderfully articulate, impeccably tuned, Monteverdi singers and players. The singing is, by turns, fleet, spry, fireside-cosy cathedral-rich – or plain raucous. Good grumble-shouts, too. All right, I’m never too convinced by choristers’ mummerset or laddish cockney, and, at the other extreme, you could argue that the singing is almost too good, too respectful at times. But there’s nothing more boring than reading an all-out rave review, so I’m niggling. Brilliant, revealing sound. A strong contender, come Award-time.